Host of TV3’s Newday Johnnie Hughes showed off his vocal prowess and musical dexterity on the show when he performed Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a wonderful World’ on on the morning show to the delight of viewers. Johnnie Hughes was part of Season I of TV3’s Bands Alive in 2008. He was the lead singer for … Read more
The emaciated teenager from a Rio favela, dressed in her mother’s clothes held tight by pins, showed up in 1953 at a radio studio. She wanted to sing in return for cash to buy medicine for her sick baby. “And what planet do you come from?” the program’s host, famous composer Ary Barroso, asked mockingly … Read more
When it comes to the deaths of musical icons, 2016 may be the worst year ever. Sunday’s startling death of pop singer George Michael caps 12 wretched months in which we’ve already said goodbye to David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince, Merle Haggard and Leonard Cohen, to name just a quintet of hugely popular and influential … Read more
Vote out the NPP and the NDC! [1] By Francis Kwarteng “The tension in the atmosphere created by the clashes does not speak well of the country and is tainting Ghana’s reputation…The clashes show the level of intolerance, which is not a sign of democracy. Democracy is a contest of ideas and not physical, where … Read more
“The tension in the atmosphere created by the clashes does not speak well of the country and is tainting Ghana’s reputation…The clashes show the level of intolerance, which is not a sign of democracy. Democracy is a contest of ideas and not physical, where violence is allowed to have a place” (Most Reverend Emmanuel Asante, … Read more
In 1956, the people of the Gold Coast hosted the legendary black trumpeter, composer and sometimes actor Louis Armstrong aka Satchmo. It was an important opportunity for the people of this country then under the yoke of colonialism to see a man who traced his ancestry to this part of the world. The Gold Coast … Read more
GHANA’S AFRO-R&B STAR QWECI AND THE QUESTION OF MUSICAL ARTICULATION The technical aspects of musical production in Ghana are not up to international standards, so too are serious, glaring technical deficits in some of the native languages some singers and musicians use for their music. We are here referring to native fluency or proficiency in … Read more
Died: July 1996 Mensah pioneered the development of the swing-jazz influenced highlife dance-bands that were so popular throughout West Africa in the 1950’s and 60’s. Indeed, these urban dance bands became the musical zeitgeist of the optimistic period of early independence. Their successful use of sophisticated western instruments to play African tunes mirrored the fact … Read more
Hugh Ramopolo Masekela was born on April 4, 1939, in Witbank, South Africa. He began singing and playing piano as a child. But at age 14, after seeing the film, YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, where Kirk Douglas portrays American Jazz trumpeter, Bix Beiderbecke, he took up trumpet, given to the young Hugh by Archbishop … Read more